Though India is often and justly described as a
land of many religions and innumerable languages, it might well be described
as a land of festivals as well. One conventional authority, the Encyclopedia
Brittanica, rather unabashedly and with the customary cavalier attitude
with which India can be treated, says of Hindu festivals that these arecombinations
of religious ceremonies, semi-ritual spectacles, worship, prayer, lustrations,
processions (to set something sacred in motion and to extend its power
throughout a certain region), music, dances (which by their rhythm have
a compelling force), magical acts -- participants throw fertilizing water
or, during the Holi festival, coloured powder at each other -- eating,
drinking, lovemaking, licentiousness, feeding the poor, and other activities
of a religious or traditional character. No example is adduced of "lovemaking",
but one might reasonably infer that the reference is to some tantric practices.

As in any old civilization, most of
these festivals have religious associations, as is the case with Holi,
Dusshera, Krishna Janmashtmi, Hanuman Jayanti,
Ganesh Chaturthi, Muharram, Shivratri, and Diwali or Deepavali; many are also, in a country which
is still predominantly rural, associated with the harvesting of the crop,
as is true of Pongal-Sankranti in South India, or otherwise commemorative
of the sacred ties with the land that Indian villagers have. Still others,
such as Karwa Chauth, the observance of which is strictly restricted
to Hindu married women, are not festivals as such though there may be
something of a festive air attached to these occasions. Some festivals
are observed throughout the country, or in a greater part of it; others,
such as the famed snake race of Kerala, have peculiarly regional associations.
Yet others, most notably Diwali and Holi, have been instrumental in forging
ties among older diasporic Indian communities, and in such far-flung places
as Fiji, Mauritius, Trinidad, Jamaica, and Guyana, these festivals are
celebrated with a pomp and vigor not always witnessed in India itself.